A healthy option for your delight! Yummy empanadas, borrecas and more!

Family run business, every bite is a delight! The perfect appetizer to complement any meal! 

Visit Bourekas, a few blocks from Aventura Mall at 18671 West Dixie Hwy

Aventura. North Miami Beach 33180

New Yorkers ramp up SoFla homebuying activity

From left: Ron Shuffield, Carlos Rosso and Carolyn Block-Ellert

South American investors fueled South Florida’s residential recovery, but domestic buyers — particularly New Yorkers — are helping drive the current boom.

Residential brokers in the region are inundated with prospective buyers based in the tri-state area. South Florida has historically been an attractive second-home destination for New York families with plenty of disposable income. But the aggressive residential resurgence has increased domestic buyer urgency to lock in a vacation home purchase while pricing remains a relative bargain.

“The New York real estate market has exploded the last few years,” ISG World principal Craig Studnicky told The Real Deal. “Preconstruction prices in Manhattan range from $5,000 to $10,000 per square foot. That’s exorbitant compared to a high-end condo in Miami at $1,000 a foot, or Miami Beach at $1,500 a foot.”

The pricing gap between New York City and South Florida condos is wide enough for tri-state buyers to get comfortable with the cash-heavy deposit structure that has become ubiquitous in the region, Studnicky said. In today’s market, South Florida unit buyers are usually putting down as much as 50 percent of the purchase price up front.

While New York is not the only domestic market with a strong interest in South Florida, it is leading the charge. The Miami Association of Realtors reports that visits to its listing service from New Yorkers triple the activity from any other U.S. market outside of Florida.

Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors president Ron Shuffield estimates a 60 percent increase in New York buyers of South Florida residences from 2012 to 2013. Encouraged by the two percent monthly price increases, more homeowners in the region are testing the market and providing desperately needed for-sale inventory for buyers to choose from.

“There has been such significant increases in value the last three years,” Shuffield said. “That has motivated people as well. The pricing needs to temper down a little but because we can’t sustain two percent monthly increases. Hopefully the increased inventory will settle the price increases.”

To date, New York buyers have targeted high-end homes and condos on the water, especially in Miami-Dade County’s coastal markets. Carlos Rosso, director of condo sales at the Related Group’s Miami office, said such investors are focusing on the company’s Miami Beach developments. Related iscurrently building the luxury One Ocean and Mareaprojects in the city.

“Certainly more Northeasterners are buying in South Beach,” Rosso said. “A lot of buyers from the Northeast are looking for a place to take residency in South Florida. There are a lot of tax advantages for those buyers.”

New Yorkers are not only acquiring South Florida residences with greater frequency. They are also paying more for what they buy, Premier Sales Group co-owner Carolyn Block-Ellert said.

Premier is currently handling sales at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Singer Island in Palm Beach County. The 242-unit luxury project is 90 percent sold.

Block-Ellert estimates a 30-to-40 percent increase in Northeast buyers at the Ritz project over the last six months.

“We’re finding New York buyers are actually spending more on purchases,” she said. “They are also buying more finished and furnished model residences. Even those who don’t need them for two years are buying now.”

Elsewhere in Palm Beach County, Corcoran Group sales associate Geoffrey Darnell is swamped with requests from Northeast residents to book meetings and property tours before the busy holiday season commences. Based in Corcoran’s Palm Beach office, Darnell primarily arranges Palm Beach County transactions.

Darnell estimates tri-state residents make up more than half of the current buyer pool in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, the markets he focuses on.

“In the middle of September I started receiving calls and e-mails from clients saying they would be in town to make pre-Thanksgiving purchases,” Darnell said. “They want to get good product at a better price prior to everyone else getting in here.”

By Eric Kalis

A sneak peak on the island beyond extraordinary, Prive at Aventura

Crossing the bridge at Williams Island.....Almost there...

Water views from every angle

NE views 

Huge lot of land where the two towers will be built 

More water views SE corner 

Office center is almost finished! Check out the model of the bathrooms!

Nouveau Stainless steel material that won't leave fingerprints from Snaidero

Can't wait to see the finished sales office. For more information on Prive, you may contact Debbie Lazoff at 305.903.0118, email at debbielazoff@gmail.com.

Please visit my website for more information on Prive or any other property. Debbielazoff.Com 

Our very own Ron Shuffield!

Experts debate starchitecture at TRD event in Miami: VIDEO

By Eric Kalis                                               

                  

      

How much value does hiring a star architect – or starchitect – add to a project in Miami’s extremely competitive condo development market?
A distinguished panel of real estate players debated this subject and more during last week’s roundtable hosted by The Real Deal at the Miami site of the Grove Grand Bay condo project. The roundtable included starchitects Bjarke Ingels and Chad Oppenheim, developer David Martin and residential brokers Esther Percal and Mayi de la Vega. Condo Vultures founder Peter Zalewski moderated an animated and informative discussion.
After the discussion, hundreds of guests enjoyed a cocktail hour and reception at the Grove Grand Bay sales center. In an exclusive TRD video, residential market experts Dora Puig and Ron Shuffield weighed in on the starchitecture debate.